So They Think They Know the Drill

NOW LISTEN UP!

I watched Fox’s “Boot Camp” again Wednesday night, and I still don’t get it. This is the show that began with 16 male and female money-driven masochists showing up for a simulated military boot camp in order to be relentlessly harassed and screamed at by four bullying former Marine Corps drill instructors, known as D.I.s.

After two weeks, the group has been whittled to 12 “recruits,” the youngest 21, the oldest a 50-year-old plumber from New York. Videotaped some time ago, each episode ends with two “recruits” getting kicked out or “dismissed” as some sort of penance, much like “Survivor.”

This is the part I don’t get. When I was in boot camp, leaving wouldn’t have been punishment. It was what I prayed for.

DID I SAY YOU COULD SMILE? WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE!

Wednesday’s episode began with “recruit” Coddington on guard duty. Watching her brought back memories of how I began my Air National Guard career as a communications center specialist (switchboard operator) with boot camp, or basic training, at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

The Cold War was raging at the time. And I recall how proud I was on one occasion to be doing my part to contain the Red Peril. At the time I was standing at attention beside the tree I was assigned to guard through the night. If the Commies were planning to defoliate Texas, they would have to go through me.

ARE YOU SMILING? WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE!

The two finalist “recruits” on “Boot Camp” are to run some kind of a gantlet in the last episode, with the winner earning $500,000. Before reaching that point, each episode has the “recruits” attempting to complete a “mission” for some kind of reward. Wednesday’s “mission,” which they botched, had them trying to infiltrate an “enemy” town and locate and consume an antidote to a fatal poison supposedly ingested by the “squad.”

Actually, that was pretty tame compared with some of the challenges I faced as a soldier in Texas, the most terrifying of which was spit-shining my boots.

OH, IS THAT FUNNY? ARE YOU DEAF? WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SMILING?

Some of my fellow “scumbags,” as we were titled by our D.I., worked miracles on their boots, achieving mirror finishes. But I never got the hang of it--Where did the spit come in?--or understood why it was necessary to polish boots that we’d wear to walk in mud. Would the Soviets break ranks and flee in panic when facing the cold, terrifying leather of shiny shoes?

On Wednesday, “recruit” Wolf complained about the facilities. “There’s no door,” he said, “there’s no toilet paper, you have 10 seconds to go to the bathroom.”

My own latrine experience was somewhat different. I won’t forget the camaraderie I felt in that large room ringed by toilets as we sat silently, eyeing each other and mingling our aromas while “doing it” as a unit. Teamwork, that’s what boot camp was about.

HEY, IS THAT A SMIRK? ARE YOU SMIRKING WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU?

As I watched “recruit” Brown reveal Wednesday night that she was a lesbian, and unpopular “recruit” Pupo admit to the camera she had an “attitude,” my thoughts returned to Texas and our behaviors there. Having been to college, I was naturally known as “the intellectual.” Yet it was I who was enlightened by the scumbag in the next bunk when he informed me one day that our D.I. was “the finest man I have ever met.”

I wondered how many men he’d met, for I had no impression of our D.I. other than of someone who stood with his nose almost touching mine and spit on me when he screamed.

GET OUTA MY FACE!

What I recall most, though, is my feeling of isolation in this skewed reality, how routines I had taken for granted, and even sometimes denigrated, began having great appeal. One of the things I most looked forward to, as an outlet, was taking my fatigues to the base laundry, which was manned by civilians, and fantasizing there about how nice it would be to escape this military drudgery forever and have a job behind that counter saying, “Next!” then punching out at 5 p.m. and going home to the wife and kids.

On Wednesday, the “recruits” of “Boot Camp” were berated as they ran up and down dirt hills, climbed ropes, and did chin-ups and push-ups, reminding me of how the physical regimen imposed on me in Texas had trimmed me to 141 pounds of fighting steel.

SAVE THE DRAMA FOR YOUR MAMA AND PUSH!

I wondered if it had been the same for Deputy Calendar Editor Lee “Mad Dog” Margulies when he was in Marine boot camp in San Diego, before he went on to distinguish himself as a clerk. I pictured him hard as nails.

WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT LAUGHING?

Margulies instantly remembered his D.I. calling a recruit with glasses “a bespeckled idiot.” But he also spoke of tortured memories that I knew he was comfortable discussing only with another boot camper, so unique is the bond that we share.

“There was really one bad night where the D.I. took us out for a little exercise,” he said. “He pushed everyone to the limit, having us run up and down hills, and do push-ups while you were facing down the hill, and then just running back ‘til everybody was ready to drop. We were standing in front of the barracks, totally winded and exhausted, thinking we were done, and he just gleefully said, ‘Here we go again, double time.’ It was a joke. We stopped after 40 yards, and he let us quit.”

The torment of that evening still lingering, Margulies was unable to continue our interview.

Wednesday’s “Boot Camp” climaxed with the usual gathering on Dismissal Hill, where the “squad” voted out “recruit” Haar, who, as the rules provided, chose another “recruit,” Pupo, to leave as well.

D.I. Rosenbum gave the occasion the solemnity it deserved: “Fellow recruits, you have spoken.”

WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE!

* “Boot Camp” can be seen Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with special advisories for coarse language).

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.